Ghosts and Murders of Manhattan

By Elise Gainer

Discover the darker side of New York City history with this collection of stories and photos.
 
Amid the bustle of the city’s ever-changing landscape, Manhattan’s past still whispers. At Fraunces Tavern, George Washington’s emotional farewell luncheon in 1783 echoes in the Long Room. Gertrude Tredwell’s ghost appears to visitors at the Merchant’s House Museum. Long since deceased, Olive Thomas shows herself to the men of the New Amsterdam Theatre, and Dorothy Parker still keeps her lunch appointment at the Algonquin Hotel.
 
In other places, it is not the paranormal but the abnormal—violent acts by gangsters, bombers, and murderers that linger in the city’s memory. Some even believe that Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler hunted here. The historic images and true stories in Ghosts and Murders of Manhattan explores the people and events that shaped this city, and live in the shadows of its majestic skyline.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781439642092

Elise Gainer

Elise Gainer, a New York City licensed tour guide, owns and operates Ghosts, Murders, and Mayhem Walking Tours. She is a member of the Merchant’s House Museum as well as the American Society for Psychical Research, Inc. The majority of images she presents here come from the rich archives of the Library of Congress, primarily the collections of George Grantham Bain, the Detroit Publishing Company, and the New York World-Telegram and Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The New Amsterdam Theatre audience emerged from the sunny make-believe world of Africa to find billowing snow blanketing Times Square. They bent into the wind, rushing to beat the brunt of the storm. In classic the-show-must-go-on spirit, the Disney Theatrical Group decided not to cancel the next day’s matinee. Knowing it would be difficult for the cast and crew to travel to and from the show in the blizzard, they arranged for a slumber party at the theater.

After raiding the soda machine and munching on popcorn, ushers, actors, and wardrobe staff set up their cots in the ornate alcove behind the velvet, orchestra-level seats. A hardy young man from Brooklyn ventured out on his own. Using child booster cushions, he made a comfortable bed on a cozy landing in the back stairwell between the balcony and the main floor. Pleased with the privacy and quiet, he pulled his cap down over his eyes to block out the soft glow cast by the stairwell footlights. The heavy hammer of sleep had not yet fallen before the sound of distant footsteps awakened him. He listened for a moment, and, deciding it must be children from the cast playing around, he dozed off.

Hours passed and footfalls again roused him from sleep. The thuds grew louder as they descended from the balcony and stopped on the landing above his bed. He peered up the stairs but nothing shown in the small flood of light. When the darkness beyond did not answer back, he scolded his imagination and fell asleep again. Soon after dawn, urgent, heavy feet pounded up the stairs from the orchestra level, and as they reached his bed, he bolted up to avoid being trampled. Finding no one to confront, the young man failed to understand what had occurred. Olive Thomas, the long-dead follies star, flashed into his mind, wearing the fur-trimmed cloak she wore in the photograph in the lobby. Had she tried to get his attention? He had heard that she haunted the theater, but he shoved the thought from his mind, choosing instead the comfortable subjects of coffee and breakfast.

Ghost encounters like this point to the possibility that life continues after death. History chronicles what life once was, while murders remind us of the frailty that life is, and each is shrouded in mystery. To make sense of the apparitions seen at the Merchant’s House Museum, to know what it was like to be imprisoned in the Sugar House during the Revolutionary War, or to comprehend what led John C. Colt to bludgeon to death a business associate is to grasp at smoke.

By combining historical images with stories of ghosts and murders, this book hopes to bring the reader closer to the subject. For those interested in the paranormal, the images set the stage and bring the characters into visual focus. For the historian, the stories add texture to the images by coloring the faces, buildings, and streets with human emotion and experiences.

Most of the stories are grouped by where they occurred. Hauntings associated with Washington Square Park, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the Brooklyn Bridge, and others are in the first chapter, Deadly Places, Public Spaces, along with the murderous events that happened on Wall Street and in Union Square, Five Points, and Hell’s Kitchen.

The chapter Lively Hotels and Homes includes ghost stories about the Algonquin Hotel, the Hotel Chelsea, Gracie Mansion, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the Dakota apartments, and activities on Gay, Tenth, and Bank Streets.

Churches, Museums, and Mysterious Institutions focuses on the paranormal activities in the graveyards of Trinity Wall Street, St. Mark’s Church, St. Paul’s Chapel, and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. This chapter also relates numerous experiences at the Merchant’s House Museum and the reasons why ghosts are associated with the Frick Collection and the Astor and Morgan Libraries. Deadly events at Bridewell’s Prison and the Tombs are also covered.

Manhattan’s most notorious and recognizable residents have their own chapter. The Famous and the Infamous discusses the inspector who botched the investigation of a purported Jack the Ripper slaying, the man suspected of being the real Boston Strangler, and the characters involved in the so-called Crime of the Century as well as the murder that captivated Edgar Allen Poe to the point that police considered him a suspect. Accounts of Prohibition-era gangsters and the first American policeman to be sentenced to death round out the section.

The final chapter, Spirited Taverns and Theaters, opens and closes with two drinking establishments, made famous by Dylan Thomas and George Washington, respectively. The ghosts of Broadway’s grand theaters—the Palace, New Amsterdam, the Richard Rogers, and the Belasco—combine with the tragedies at the Metropolitan Opera House and the Astor Place riots to complete the book.

Hopefully, this dark journey will illuminate some of Manhattan’s mysteries.

One

DEADLY PLACES,

PUBLIC SPACES

When the Social Conference of Unemployed scheduled a demonstration on March 28, 1908, at 2:00 p.m. in Union Square, the parks bureau denied their request for a permit to speak. The huge crowd that gathered found a large police presence and the area roped off. This must have angered the self-professed radical socialist Selig Cohen, who called himself Selig Silverstein, for he returned to the square at 3:30 p.m. with a bomb.

As Silverstein approached a cluster of police near the park’s center fountain, he nervously lit a cigarette and attempted to ignite the fuse to his bomb. Instead, he dropped the cigarette into the opening of the brass bulb containing nitroglycerine and dynamite. Sparks ignited, followed by a massive boom that shook people in the surrounding blocks. The bomb exploded in Silverstein’s hand, and an innocent tailor next to him died. After a moment of stunned silence, chaos erupted, with people running in all directions. Police drove people from the square with their clubs and horses. A quick-thinking policeman attached a tourniquet to Silverstein’s arm and rushed him to the hospital, where Silverstein said he was sorry he had not killed any policemen. He died a month later after having his hand amputated.